Gender relations are neither uniform across societies nor historically static. A vast array of studies of different cultures, regions, and communities bears this out, as does the material on South Asia in this book. However, these call for a conceptual framework that would help us characterize gender relations, explain how they are maintained, and identify the processes by which they might change over time. This chapter is an attempt in that direction.

The term gender relations as used here refers to the relations of power between women and men which are revealed in a range of practices, ideas, and representations, including the division of labour, roles, and resources between women and men, and the ascribing to them of different abilities, attitudes, desires, personality traits, behavioural patterns, and so on. Gender relations are both constituted by and help constitute these practices and ideologies in interaction with other structures of social hierarchy such as class, caste, and race. They may be seen as largely socially constructed (rather than biologically determined), and as variable over time and place.